The Music of Chance (1990)

In the early zeros, when I worked at the village IGA, Georges, one of the older baggers, came back from lunch with a stricken look on his face. He held up a receipt he found crumpled up by the bank machine across the street.
"Hey. Check!" he said, holding it too close to my face. "Balance $200,000 tabarnak! My life is fucking garbage and always will be fucking garbage."
An unhappy bagger can make for a long afternoon, so I examined the paper, clapped a chapped hand on his shoulder and said, "Only an idiot would leave $200,000 in a savings account."
This seemed to cheer him up a bit, and it gave us a good discussion topic for the rest of the day.
When Nashe, in Paul Auster's 'The Music of Chance' plops his $200,000 inheritance into a bank account, I know I'm in for a nervous read about a man who will run out of money somewhere awful. Will it be fast? Will it be painful? Even when he's just driving the roads to nowhere in the beginning of the book, there's a lot of suspense over that money in the bank, and later, the glove box; sort of a fiscal musical chairs where I know from the start, Nashe is going to be 'out' in a big way.
This is my first Paul Auster book, and I thought it was damn clever the way he wove suspense out of something sitting somewhere and running out. Once the money is gone, he continues to build a good story from other things running out on Nashe; strength, energy, clarity of mind, liberty, companionship, until the end where he finds out what he is made of. And the verdict isn't bad. He's lost everything, but Nashe is made of adequate stuff. He also appreciates how:
"All of a sudden, the stones were turning into a wall, and in spite of the pain it had cost him, he could not help admiring it. Whenever he stopped and looked at it now, he felt awed by what he had done."
I've never understood gambling, but the stones turning into a wall is a familiar state of mind, and I like how Auster let it sneak up on me, his lovely voice pulling me along. Does he, perhaps, feel this every time he writes a book?
And how about this:
"As Nashe and Pozzi discovered, it was one thing to lift a sixty-pound stone, but once that stone had been lifted, it was quite another thing to lift a second sixty-pound stone, and still another thing to take on the third stone after lifting the second. No matter how strong they felt while lifting the first, much of that strength would be gone by the time they came to the second... Every time they worked on the wall, Nashe and Pozzi came up against the same bewitching conundrum: all the stones were identical, and yet each stone was heavier than the one before it."
This is the best book I have ever read about art, that's not about art. For what are great works of art, especially novels, made of? Heavy-lifting and geologic patience.

An intriguing story about resilience and endeavour.
The principal character is Jim Nashe, a Boston firefighter who unexpectedly inherits a minor fortune from his hitherto absent father. After making provision for his young daughter Juliette, who is being brought up by his sister, Jim leaves his job and decides to go driving around the country, with no particular plan or itinerary in mind. He has several one night stands on the way, and even starts an "occasional" relationship with a former acquaintance whom he meets by chance in a bookstore.
Then, after several months, he chances up Jack Pozzi (known as "Jackpot") who is virtually crawling up the road after a brutal beating. Jim picks him up and is fascinated by his story. It turns out that Jack is a wannabe professional poker player who is hoping to participate in a game with two bizarre multi-millionaires. As the reader has always known he would, Jim offers to stake Jack in the game.
The description of the game is brisk and avoids any technicalities (which is fortunate as they would have meant nothing whatsoever to me), but keeps the reader's attention at full tension. And that is when the fun starts!
There is always a great economy about Auster's writing, with no hint of frill or embellishment (- as you have probably guessed I was trying to avoid the obvious pun of "austerity", though that is perhaps "le mot juste"), and this novel shows no departure from that. As usual, at the most basic level the events depicted are scarcely credible. However, as one reads it one's disbelief is entirely suspended, and the book is utterly beguiling and engrossing - I virtually read it at a single sitting. ( )

Strangely compelling, to build a wall. ( )

ספר מצוין וקולח, נקרא בקלות. סיפור מוזר ומשונה על ​אנשים שמוותרים על כל שליטה בחייהם.​ ( )

This turned out to be a much better book than I'd expected, and by the middle, I was really impressed by Auster's ability to maintain a sinister sort of suspense that held out until the end. ( )

Like being sucked head first into a deadly whirlwind or something. You keep hoping the characters are going to get out, get away, hoping beyond hope until.... I won't give the story away. Fabulous book, more like one of Aesop's fables than anything else I've read in a long while. Another of Darren's picks. I'm lucky to have a bloke with good taste in books! ( )

Like being sucked head first into a deadly whirlwind or something. You keep hoping the characters are going to get out, get away, hoping beyond hope until.... I won't give the story away. Fabulous book, more like one of Aesop's fables than anything else I've read in a long while. Another of Darren's picks. I'm lucky to have a bloke with good taste in books! ( )

The first half is far better than the second: I have recently read a number of Auster novels and become a fan of his work. This present work starts terrifically and has a great first half. The restless wandering endlessly driving through America former fireman father of a two year old daughter who he has left with his sister, abandoned by his wife, Nashe is a typical Auster loner, intellectual, interesting, tough- minded and decent. When he takes into his car and saves a beaten- to- the pulp young Italian man they strike up a scheme for making some money fast. Nashe who started out with a large sum he inherited from the father he never really knew agrees to bankroll Pozzi(Who also grew up with a largely absent father) in a poker- game in which he will play against two weird multi- millionaire Lottery winners. The story of the poker- game itself is told in an interesting and exciting way. But the best thing in the book is the friendship and dialogue between Nashe and Pozzi.
In any case the second part of the book is really a kind of crazy prison story which I found largely unbelievable. I have noticed Auster often puts his heroes in dead- end disastrous prison- like situations. I have noticed that he also too often leads them to very cruel endings.
Again and again I find Auster creates very fascinating characters who he develops to a certain point and then abandons.
In any case this work for me anyway had a very good first half, and a mediocre second one.

I appreciated what this novel was trying to do, but was bothered by my complete and utter lack of attachment to the characters. The premise (lives colliding by chance) is intriguing and the narrative is beautifully executed. What was missing for me was the answer to "why?." The main character seems to be a passive observer to his own life, with a few moments of real passion interspersed.

Auster does have a gift for metaphor, using Pozzi and Nashe's wall as a symbol of perseverance and incarceration at the same time. There is a tenderness that while left largely unexplored, runs like a tiny stream throughout the story. It is this stream that saves the book. We learn how quickly solitude loses its freedom-like quality when faced with personal loss. ( )

Remeniscent of Steinbeck and Kerouac, Auster has captured something of the remnant of the beat generation in this captivating portrayal of two unlikely companions who face an even more unlikely destiny.

Read more of this review at Arukiyomi ( )

La lente dégringolade d'un homme pris dans les engrenages du destin. Une métaphore qui rappelle le mythe de Sysiphe conduit avec beaucoup de maîtrise par Paul Auster. ( )

His best book thus far. ( )